This invention generally relates to a system for utilizing user feedback cues in an interactive payment system. More specifically, the invention relates to the use of visual feedback to reduce customer confusion and errors in a transaction while reinforcing payment product and/or service branding.
Interactive payment systems have been employed in a variety of customer settings. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,152,591 discloses a fuel dispensing system having a graphics user interface that allows the customer to interact with instructions or commercial advertisements displayed on a multimedia device. The system includes a touch screen display interface, a fuel dispenser and a multimedia controller that operate to determine if the customer has used the fuel dispenser before, and if not, to display additional instructions to assist the customer with the operation of the fuel dispenser. U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,263, on the other hand, describes a visual ordering system that uses images to allow a restaurant customer to order menu items from an interactive display. As the customer decides which menu items to order, the system tabulates a running bill and provides an payment interface to permit the customer to tender payment for the ordered items. U.S. Pat. No. 5,878,141 to Microsoft describes an interactive system and method for determining the overlap between a set of payment options that are available to a purchaser and a set of payment options accepted by a merchant in order to compute an intersection of the sets to provide the purchaser with a list of only those payment options accepted by the merchant which the purchaser is capable of using to consummate the transaction. Additionally, many examples may be found on the Internet where an electronic shopping system is deployed to permit a customer, for example: (1) to select items for purchase from an online catalog; and (2) to tender payment via, for example, a webpage interface.
Pre-existing systems, however, are generally configured to prompt customers to enter a payment product I service identifier (i.e., a credit card number, account code, and/or the like) as a string of alphanumeric characters which is usually processed near the conclusion of the transactionxe2x80x94often concurrent with charge authorization. During this process, the customer is generally left with relatively few resources for determining which mechanism of payment was utilized to initiate the payment process until, for example: (1) verification of the charge authorization fails; or (2) a receipt for the completed purchase has been generated.
There is a need, therefore, within the interactive payment processing and multimedia arts, to provide substantially immediate customer feedback that is, at least in part, based on data obtained from the customer""s selection of a method for tendering payment for a transaction. There is also a need for a feedback system and method that reinforces payment product and/or service branding for payment product marks, such as, for example: AMERICAN EXPRESS(copyright); AMERICAN EXPRESS OPTIMA(copyright); BLUE FROM AMERICAN EXPRESS(copyright); Mastercard(copyright); Visa(copyright); etc.
In general, the present invention discloses an improved system and method for providing feedback in an interactive payment system. Presenting feedback in an interactive payment system helps customers inter alia understand transaction data they have entered and provides cues for identifying, for example, potentially incorrect data prior to payment processing. Presentation of feedback also helps payment product and/or service providers increase recognition of a particular product, service or overall brand.
In one representative application, a visual display cue indicates a payment product type based on an alphanumeric sequence that identifies a payment product, such as a customer credit card. The system is initialized with a set of display cues and associated criteria that trigger display cues at system initialization or on an ongoing basis as various information is loaded, stored and/or processed. For example, at system initialization the icon for an AMERICAN EXPRESS(copyright) customer card can be associated with a criterion or set of criteria that trigger the display of an appropriate icon.
As the customer enters a credit card number, an algorithm processes the digit sequence entered to determine the payment method. For example, the system may parse the payment identifier the customer entered to detect a BIN number, which, for example, may be the first six digits of the credit card number. The BIN number generally provides broad information about the payment product/service, such as payment routing information. This information can be used to determine the identity of the company providing the payment product/service, as well as other information unique to the customer or account.
Additional digits may be used to determine other information, such as: the particular payment product/service type; whether the card belongs to a particular group (i.e., credit union members, senior citizens, etc.); or the country or locale where the card was issued. For example, the customer may have entered an AMERICAN EXPRESS(copyright) customer card account number that was issued to a senior citizen in the United States. The processing for these features may be encoded into a look up table or alternatively may be algorithmically derived. In a table encoding scheme, the digits of the card may be used to index a table containing payment product/service features and attributes. In an algorithmic processing scheme, the digits may be processed to determine the product/service features and attributes. For example, if the seventh digit is an odd number, or alternately if the sum of the seventh, eighth and ninth digits are odd, this may indicate a specific card product, such as that of a senior card.
The BIN and digit processing may be accomplished on a customer system or on a remote host server. In a customer-based processing system, instruction code for determining the payment instrument type may reside on a local computer used by the customer. For example, the instruction code may be adapted as a Java(copyright) program that is run on the local browsing computer, which may be configured to determine the payment instrument type and display an appropriate visual cue. Alternatively, in a server-based processing system, the payment instrument identifier may be transmitted to, for example, a payment processing server computer where the payment identifier is processed and the appropriate code information, or the appropriate display cue, may be returned to the customer for visual display. The customer-based embodiment has the potential advantages of speed and flexibility, while the remote processing embodiment may provide additional security and display cue flexibility. The remote processing scenario may be integrated with, for example, payment instrument validation as well. The display cue may further provide information about the validation process, such as card declination or acceptance status, available balance information, etc.
Once the type of payment system has been identified, the appropriate graphical display cues may then be selected and displayed. Similar to the processing above, the display process may be local (e.g., customer-side) or remote (e.g., server-side). In a customer-based approach, the display cue may be processed and displayed from a local store of display cues. In the server-based approach, the display cue may be selected from a remote database of feedback cues and either transmitted independently to the customer or incorporated into a webpage or other suitably adapted data presentation that is then provided to the customer.
The present invention thus provides for substantially immediate customer feedback based on data obtained from the customer""s selection of the method, service or payment product for consummating a transaction. Moreover, the disclosed method also provides for the reduction of customer confusion and errors in a transaction while reinforcing payment product and/or service branding. Additional advantages of the present invention will be set forth in the detailed description which follows, and in part will be obvious from the detailed description, or may be learned by practice of the invention.